Help bring back home Ukrainian children abducted by Russia

Ukraine’s ambassador to Kenya, Andrii Pravednyk. [Courtesy]

On Tuesday, the world marked the World Day Against Trafficking In Persons. This year's global campaign for World Day Against Trafficking in Persons urges accelerated action to end child trafficking.

Children represent a significant proportion of trafficking victims worldwide. Amidst overlapping crises such as armed conflicts, children are increasingly vulnerable to trafficking.

Children are subjected to various forms of trafficking, including exploitation through forced labour, criminality or begging, trafficking for illegal adoption and recruitment into armed forces.

The abduction of children is more than ever, a sensitive and extremely important issue for Ukraine. It is an issue which deserves the attention of the whole world.

The Russian occupation regime has systematically organised for the mass forced deportation of children from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and sent them to various remote regions of the Russian Federation.

From the beginning of the unprovoked and unjustified full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russia has forcibly deported almost 20,000 children to areas under its control, assigned them Russian citizenship, forcibly adopted them into Russian families, and created obstacles for their reunification with their parents and homeland.

The Kremlin created at least 70 camps or other institutions on the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine where Russians forcibly 're-educate' deported Ukrainian children in order to deprive them of their national identity.

In particular, children are taught history from a perspective of Russian propaganda interpretation. The Russians distort the facts about the war against Ukraine; teach the children Russian language and culture and forbid them from speaking Ukrainian or displaying any Ukrainian symbols.

Ukrainian children are also forced to participate in military training and to wear Russian military uniforms. The children are severely punished if they resist singing the Russian anthem.

The most terrible aspect of all is that these barbaric actions are supported by the Russian Orthodox Church. According to international law, including the 1948 Genocide Convention, such acts constitute genocide if done with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a nation or ethnic group.

That is why the world community has condemned – and must continue to condemn – the trafficking of Ukrainian children by Russia.

The ICC on March 17, 2023 issued an arrest warrant for war crimes in Ukraine for the Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, his Commissioner for Children’s Rights. The court accused them of bearing criminal responsibility for the abduction of Ukrainian children.

A Ukrainian humanitarian programme - Bring Kids Back UA, with the assistance and mediation of international partners has managed to return 758 Ukrainian children from Russia and from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. But thousands of our children are still in Russian captivity.

Only the efforts of all countries that respect children's rights, can end these Russian atrocities. I appeal to all Kenyans to work with Ukraine to establish a just and comprehensive peace in Ukraine and to assist in bringing Ukrainian children back home.  

Ambassador of Ukraine to the Republic of Kenya